by Kay Hooper
“Yaah,” Bear said, as if he’d read her mind.
“I can handle it,” she said, turning her head to look at the little cat. He was sitting on the back of the couch, where he had observed silently. “I won’t lose control. It’s just jet lag, that’s all. That’s why I’m imagining things tonight.”
Bear chirped softly.
As tired and disturbed as she was, Storm’s inner alarm clock reminded her of an appointment that had to be kept. She rose and went into the bathroom and splashed cold water on her face, pausing for a moment to study her reflection in the mirror. Her lips were a little swollen, a deeper red than she was accustomed to, and her eyes were very bright, almost feverish.
“Liar,” she murmured to herself, admitting what was gnawing at her painfully. “And the hell of it is—you’re getting good at it. Too good.”
She dried her face and went back out into the sitting room, trying not to think. Not that she could avoid it. The intensity of desire between her and Wolfe had caught her off guard, the passion it promised a definite complication. It wasn’t her job to get involved with a man—and most especially not the man responsible for the security of the Mysteries Past exhibit.
She couldn’t afford to let that happen, she told herself fiercely. Even if it caused no other problems, her loyalty could be divided. She could let down her guard with Wolfe, tell him things she had no right to tell him.
Even worse, she would be gaining his trust under false pretenses. He was, like his namesake, wary, suspicious of a hand held out; what would his reaction be if they became lovers and he found out she’d lied to him?
“Goddammit,” she whispered, unconsciously pacing the sitting room as Bear watched silently from the back of the couch.
A soft knock at the door drew Storm’s attention, and she went quickly to the little hallway. She looked through the security peephole and immediately opened the door. Without a word, she stepped back to let him in.
While she was closing the door, he went into the sitting room, looking around him with the automatically searching gaze of a man always wary of his surroundings. Bear spoke to him softly from the back of the couch, and he scratched the little cat briefly under the chin as he passed. He ended up standing to one side of the window, gazing out on the lights of the city.
Storm came back into the room and sat down on the arm of a chair, watching the visitor. “I don’t like lying to him.” The statement came out abruptly.
The man turned away from the window, his strange eyes cool and calm. “You don’t have a choice,” he said.
Quinn didn’t linger in the neighborhood where Morgan had found him. Instead, he returned to her neighborhood, the area surrounding the Museum of Historical Art, and from his favorite rooftop vantage point watched the big building.
When his cell phone vibrated a summons, he hooked the earpiece into place and responded with a low, “Yeah?”
“Anything?”
“No. Quiet night.”
“Have you been inside the museum?”
“Earlier.”
“So they haven’t any idea you can come and go as you please?”
“Not yet. But it may well be a different situation once the new security goes on line.”
“I think we can safely count on that.”
“I’ll be able to get inside.”
“How can you be so sure?”
“Experience. I don’t care how good a security system is, there’s always a weak point. Always.”
“And you have the knack of finding them.”
“It hasn’t failed me yet.”
“No, but you’re pushing it this time. Pushing your luck. Staying too long in the same place. I don’t like any of this.”
“We’ve been through this before.”
“Look, it’s not too late to turn back.”
“Yes, it is,” Quinn replied. “It’s been too late for a long, long time.”
A rough sigh came through the earpiece. “You know what I mean.”
“Yes. And you know why I can’t turn back.”
“What I know is that sometimes the price is too high to pay. What good will it do you to get what you want if the cost is your freedom—or even your life?”
“I have nine lives, didn’t you know?” Quinn kept his voice light and careless.
“You might have started out with nine, but my reckoning has it down to about two.”
Quinn lifted his binoculars and intently studied the side door of the museum. No, nothing . . . just a shadow. “Then two,” he said, “will have to do.”
“And if you run out before the job’s done?”
“In that case, you’ll have to finish for me.”
“Christ.”
“You will, we both know that.” Quinn lowered the binoculars and spoke calmly. “It’s late. Go to bed. I’m going to check out a few more possible targets for that gang.”
“Just don’t get too goddamned close.”
“If I don’t get close enough to find out who’s behind them, all this could be for nothing,” Quinn reminded. “From what I’ve seen, they could get the Bannister collection. They could walk off with every last piece of it. I can’t let them do that.”
“You may not be able to stop them.”
Quinn laughed softly. “Watch me,” he said.
Storm smothered a yawn with one hand while she used the other to key a brief command into the computer. It began humming busily, obedient to her touch.
“Yarr,” Bear commented from his position atop the desk.
“Not so loud.” Storm lifted her coffee mug and sipped the steaming liquid cautiously. It was her third cup since arriving at the museum at eight-thirty, and the caffeine was only now kicking in an hour later. Normally, she limited herself to one cup, since caffeine had the peculiar effect of making her more reckless than usual, but she told herself that this one time it was more important to wake up and function with something approaching a normal efficiency than to worry about being reckless.
A night’s sleep had done little to combat her jet lag, and she felt like she was moving through a fog. In addition, she hated mornings just on principle, so her mood wouldn’t have been much improved even if she’d been at the top of her form.
She hoped Wolfe wouldn’t come into the computer room anytime soon. She hadn’t yet seen him this morning, and that was fine with her. If he discovered just how punchy she was first thing in the morning, he was certainly both intelligent enough and ruthless enough to take advantage of it.
She had dreamed about him last night, first an incredibly erotic interlude between them as lovers, and then, in one of those crazy, topsy-turvy changes common to dreams, the scene had turned into something else. She’d been in a peculiar kind of classroom, feverishly writing mathematical formulas on a blackboard draped with glittering gems, while she told herself out loud, over and over, that she had to do her job. Then another change of scene and she was running, hiding, while Wolfe, enraged, hunted her through a creepy jungle filled with computer cables instead of vines; he kept yelling that she’d betrayed him.
Storm had awakened just as Wolfe, turning into his namesake, lunged at her in the dream. She hadn’t, as with most nightmares, awakened in gasping, heart-thudding fear. What she had felt was simple pain.
For a moment, as she sat there at her quiet desk remembering the details of the dream, Storm was tempted to just run. But even as the urge occurred, her mind was listing all the reasons why she couldn’t.
Having a logical intellect and a strong sense of responsibility definitely had its drawbacks.
Sighing, Storm double-checked the computer to make certain it was loading properly and then reached for the thick cardboard tube leaning against her desk. From this, she withdrew a set of blueprints for the museum, which she spread out atop her desk.
The edges kept trying to roll up, so she used an amiable Bear to weight one corner, a thick manual on the workings of the laser security system to weight another, then propped her telephone and
coffee mug on the remaining two corners.
It helped to have something her mind could focus on, and since she had rashly promised Wolfe she would have the computerized security system on line in record time, she had her work cut out for her. After studying the first-floor plans for some time, she got a legal pad from her desk drawer and a handful of sharpened pencils from another. Her favorite bright pink highlighter pen was in the breast pocket of her flannel shirt, and she used that to mark specific points directly on the blueprints.
She left the computer room only once in the next hour, going across the hall to the employees’ lounge to refill her coffee cup. She met no one on the way and didn’t linger.
It was nearly eleven o’clock when a brisk rap on the jamb of the open door heralded Morgan West’s entrance into the room. The young director of the Mysteries Past exhibit looked as elegant as usual, her gleaming black hair worn up today and her astonishing figure simply clothed in a jade silk blouse and black pants.
Storm, dressed in faded jeans and a green plaid flannel shirt worn open over a black turtleneck sweater, felt a pang of rueful envy for the other woman’s effortless sense of elegance.
“Hi,” Morgan said as she breezed in.
“Hi, yourself,” Storm responded. “What’s up?”
Amber eyes bright with interest, Morgan rested a hip on one corner of the desk, automatically scratched Bear under the chin, and said mildly, “Wolfe’s acting like he got one paw caught in a steel trap.”
Storm frowned down at her most recent note and began to erase one word. “Yeah?”
“Yeah. And since one of the guards saw you two leave together last night, the place is filled with speculation.”
Storm had thought it might be. She gave up the pretense of working and leaned back in her chair. “So you’re in charge of officially verifying the facts?” she asked politely.
Morgan chuckled warmly. “Not at all. I’m just incurably nosy. I’m also very impressed—if, that is, you are responsible for Wolfe’s lousy mood.”
“Oh? Why is that?”
“Because, from what I’ve seen these last months, Wolfe hasn’t let any lady get close enough to even barely annoy him, much less get under his skin to the point that he’s snapping everybody’s head off.”
“As I understand it,” Storm commented dryly, “he’s let plenty of ladies get close.”
“Oh, physically, sure. But not emotionally. Even Nyssa Armstrong couldn’t make a dent—and she’s been enslaving men since she hit her teens.”
Storm pursed her lips thoughtfully. “I somehow doubt Wolfe could be enslaved by any woman.” She kept to herself the thought that it was likely to be the other way around.
Morgan half nodded in agreement. “He’d have to be willing, that’s for sure. The right woman could do it. Is that you, by any chance?”
“I’m not his type,” Storm replied placidly. “Hardly five-foot-nine and sleek. And nowhere near a Barbie doll.”
It was obvious by then that Morgan wasn’t going to get the answers she’d been probing for, and her chuckle this time held graceful acceptance. “Okay, okay, I know when I’m being warned off. But, just for the record, I think the reason Wolfe’s snapping at everybody is because you are his type—and he’s getting real nervous about it.”
Storm smiled slightly, but all she said was, “I’ll note down your opinion. For the record.”
Morgan’s smile grew wider. “You know, both you and Wolfe are so closemouthed you’ll drive each other nuts. Oh, boy, is this going to be good. I’ll get myself a front-row seat and just watch from the sidelines, shall I?”
“Suit yourself.”
Laughing, Morgan removed herself from the desk. “Listen, if you don’t get a better offer, I know a great café just around the corner where we could have lunch. Interested?”
“Sure,” Storm said, adding blandly, “if I don’t get a better offer.”
“Well, give me a call if you do; I’ll be in my office the rest of the morning.”
“Gotcha.”
For a few minutes after Morgan had gone, Storm remained at her desk looking somewhat blindly down at the blueprints. Morgan, she thought, would make a first-class friend. She was talkative, yes, but honest and without an ounce of malice.
But she was also unusually perceptive, highly observant, and very, very smart—and that was why Storm couldn’t drop her guard with the other woman. Not now, at least. And, depending on how things turned out, maybe not ever.
That thought was a reminder of her responsibilities, and a glance at her watch confirmed the time. Storm rose from the desk and went to shut the door firmly. She had already discovered that this room, like most meant to house sensitive electronic equipment, was specially insulated and virtually soundproofed, so she had no qualms about using the phone. Especially since she had done some quick rewiring yesterday and used a couple of state-of-the-art devices to ensure that no one could pick up another phone in the building and eavesdrop on the line she was using.
She made herself comfortable in her chair, mentally organized her thoughts, and picked up the receiver. She punched a number from memory, and her call was answered on the first ring.
“Yeah?”
“It’s me. I’ve spent the morning going over the blueprints. For a big building with too many doors, this place is pretty tight.”
“Can you handle the security system?” he asked.
“Of course I can. I already told you that.”
“All right, don’t get your Irish up; I had to ask.”
“Ireland was a few generations back,” she said dryly. “And only on one side. These days, my temper’s pure Cajun.”
He sighed, about halfway amused. “I’ll keep that in mind.” Then his rather cool voice turned businesslike again. Businesslike and definitely critical. “I’m not so sure you should have told Wolfe Nickerson about the phone patch. Not this early, anyway. He was already suspicious of Ace Security; this is not going to help.”
Storm kept her voice calm. “I believe I was able to use something else to deflect his suspicions away from security precautions.”
“What did you use?”
“I pointed him at Nyssa Armstrong.”
There was a long silence, and then his voice came over the line very softly. “You did what?”
“You heard me.”
“Why the hell didn’t you tell me this last night?”
Gently, she said, “Because I didn’t see the need to. And since I’m the one in the hot seat—it’s my call.”
Another long silence, and when he spoke it was obvious he was holding on to a formidable temper. “I see. Then do you mind telling me—”
A firm knock on the door, loud enough for him to hear, interrupted him. Quickly, he said, “Call me again later—”
“Wait,” she said. Raising her voice, she invited the visitor to enter. Since the knock had been so emphatic, she wasn’t at all surprised when Wolfe came in. “Be with you in a minute,” she told him calmly, and then, into the phone, said, “You were saying?”
“It’s him, isn’t it? He’s right there in the room?”
“Yes, you’re right.” She watched Wolfe close the door behind him.
The silence this time was brief, and the voice on the phone was unwillingly amused. “You’d play with dynamite in a forest fire, wouldn’t you, Storm?”
“Sure. It’s on my résumé.”
He sighed. “Well, never mind. Just call me when you’re free and we’ll set up the next meeting. We have to discuss this before it goes all to hell.”
“I’ll do that. Thank you very much, sir.”
He made a rude noise—obviously because he knew her courtesy was for Wolfe’s benefit—and hung up.
Storm cradled the phone and looked at the visitor towering over her desk. Judging by his impassive face, he wasn’t going to mention last night. In a voice of drawling politeness, she asked, “Is there something I can do for you?”
Instead of answering
that, Wolfe said, “You mentioned your résumé; planning to change jobs?”
“It’s crossed my mind once or twice. Besides, it never hurts to keep your options open.”
“I suppose.” He looked as if he could have said more on the subject, but it was clear he wasn’t suspicious of the call.
Before he could tell her why he’d come in, Storm, characteristically, strolled in where angels would have been hesitant to go. “I hear you’ve been a mite testy this morning,” she offered solemnly.
His impassive mask cracked a bit as his mouth tightened. “Morgan talks too much.”
Storm chuckled. “I doubt even Morgan would argue with that assessment. Comfort yourself with the knowledge that she has your best interests at heart.”
“I don’t need her help,” Wolfe snapped. “And I want her to mind her own damned business.”
Storm leaned an elbow on the blueprints, propped her chin in her hand, and gently drawled, “People in hell want ice water; that don’t mean they get it.”
Wolfe stared at her. For the life of him, he couldn’t think of a thing to say.
She smiled slightly. “Something my mama used to tell her kids. And we’ve both lived long enough to learn the truth of it. What we want doesn’t count for a whole hell of a lot. You won’t shut Morgan up without a gag, and even if you did, someone else would be happy to spread the news that you were something less than your usual calm self.”
He couldn’t deny the truth of that. And, even more, he knew he was only making matters worse by his attitude now. It wasn’t as if he was hiding anything. He was in a rotten mood, and everyone knew it.
Part of him wanted to hang on to that mood, because it provided a sort of insulation between his turbulent feelings and the cause of all that chaos—her. But, as usual, her lazy voice and vivid face had the trick of both fascinating and irritating him until he found himself answering her taunts and jabs instead of letting them roll off his back.
Like now, for instance.
“Little bit under the weather, Wolfe? Get up on the wrong side of the bed? Or maybe you just had a hard time sleeping last night?”
“None of the above,” he retorted. “And if that last was a passing reference to the haunting effect of your charms—”
